Spoilers abound in this news round-up for the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 2, so if you're the type who prefers to stick their head in the sand until a movie comes out then go no further. First up, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a couple of new recruits. Actually, new is a relative term...

He's here to kick sarlacc and chew bubblegum... just ahh... give him a minute.

Last week Robert Redford was announced to be the newest addition to the cast of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and when Spinoff Online asked him yesterday about his rumoured roll as a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he was quick to correct them saying: “Well, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. The head of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
So, does this mean Nick Fury will be getting a demotion? Redford could portray a past head honcho in a flashback, maybe even a previous Nick Fury! If there's one thing that James Bond movies have taught me, it's that many different people can hold the name of an organizations top spy.

The above costume concepts for Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier and Anthony Mackie's Falcon from the Captain America sequel are really interesting and highlight that in the MCU, characters like Cap and Iron Man only stand out either because they want to or need to. The view of the final suit battle from Iron Man featuring the actual Hulkbuster design style is also pretty sweet.

A cantina scene? Bad move Marvel, no one ever remembers those.

The Guardians of the Galaxy concept art focuses more on the cosmic scope of the film, highlighting strange new worlds and ships that will no doubt mean many sleepless nights for potential LEGO model designers. I find the cantina scene quite amusing and it's always good to see more of Rocket Raccoon. This artwork comes just two weeks after the confirmation of ex-wrestler Dave Batista's casting in the role of Drax the Destroyer. My only knowledge of Batista comes from seeing him in The Man With The Iron Fists, which was an absolutely terrible movie. I hope he brings a bot more zeal to this character and look forward to more (and hopefully better) casting news on GotG.

The Thor: The Dark World behind the scenes photos seem to highlight the fact that the film will take place across many worlds and with any luck we'll see a trailer soon as one has been rumoured to accompany Iron Man 3 for some time.

Moving on to Phase 3, we now have some decent screen shots of the Ant-Man costume from Edgar Wright's test reel for the long awaited movie that has been confirmed as part of Phase 3 along with Kevin Feige's hinting towards a Doctor Strange film.
The later is even rumoured to cameo in this falls Thor sequel, but we will see.

All this concept art and the live action footage from Thor: The Dark World and Wright's Ant-Man test reel are included in this Phase 2 look from Marvel over on Daily Motion.

On the Television front, we learn of S.H.I.E.L.D.s other new recruit as a bonus. Clark Gregg spoke to Collider at Wondercon about his involvement with the new S.H.I.E.L.D. show on ABC and hinted that the return of Coulson post-Avengers could be an ongoing mystery in the series. He also spoke about how the shows continuity may make it possible for the fan favourite agent to return to the big screen MCU. Possibly.

man i remember a few years ago having a moment realizing that when it came to comic book movies, dc was the only game in town with Superman and Batman. No doubt helped by the fact that DC is owned by Time Warner. Nothing coming out of Marvel's side unless you count that really bad Punisher movie. Then CGI took off and we finally started seeing some better efforts by Marvel. Now it seems the tables have turned when it comes to comic book movies. DC has a lot of catching up to do. and they can't do it on superman and batman alone...

These are amazing projects. Guardians of the Galaxy is something I would never have guessed would work in the movies, something that should firmly remain in the drawn comic-book world, but after seeing Thor, how Mavel universe cosmic-ality was handled, I'm convinced I've got to watch these in the theaters on opening weekend.

I still don't get how The Punisher character and stories haven't led to an amazing movie. There's been three attempts, and they've all been disappointing. With the art, and stories, and scripts, in the Punisher books, there's got to be a good movie in there somewhere. Same thing with Ghost Rider. That's an even simpler tale, that should've been amazing, but ended up being...not amazing.

sparkart wrote:These are amazing projects. Guardians of the Galaxy is something I would never have guessed would work in the movies, something that should firmly remain in the drawn comic-book world, but after seeing Thor, how Mavel universe cosmic-ality was handled, I'm convinced I've got to watch these in the theaters on opening weekend.

I still don't get how The Punisher character and stories haven't led to an amazing movie. There's been three attempts, and they've all been disappointing. With the art, and stories, and scripts, in the Punisher books, there's got to be a good movie in there somewhere. Same thing with Ghost Rider. That's an even simpler tale, that should've been amazing, but ended up being...not amazing.

Personally I'm a big fan of the Tom Jane Punisher movie, but it's not as good as it could have been for sure. Ghost Rider 1 and 2 had some nice visuals in parts, but were otherwise pretty bad, yeah.

I'm keen to see what the eventual MCU Daredevil will bring (I think he's a character who might work better as a TV show like Arrow, relatively low need for CGI, mostly practical effects and then maybe bring him in on an eventual Marvel Knights flick or something.

I think both the best and worst thing that Marvel did was sell the rights to some of its best characters to other companies. The competition fostered from those moves among Sony and 20th Cent Fox really improved the superhero movie landscape. Included in that a little bit is the technological (computer and acting) aspect, but moreso the competition spurred the business on to gain a much larger following. To be sure, there were a lot of clunkers (Fantastic Four, Daredevil/Elektra, the aforementioned Punisher and Ghost Rider, and even some of the X-men and Spiderman movies), but the result is a much more fertile field that the MCU was able to capitalize off of.

However, they also screwed themselves over in that they don't have three of their biggest properties at their own disposal. This hurts their pocketbooks, but I don't care that much about that. What I do care about is that they're unable to create even better stories via the natural inclusion of Wolverine and/or Spidey in the Avengers.